The Times has now run Guido’s story on the Deputy Prime Minister’s wildly inconsistent career history claims. It repeats the spin provided to the Mail on Thursday night:
“Sources close to the Deputy Prime Minister said that during her time at the Stockport Council, she was elected to two trade union roles at Unison – assistant branch secretary in 2005 and branch secretary in 2011– but her permanent and substantive role remained as a home help.”
That line does nothing to clarify the at-least four different statements Rayner has provided for her time as a home help. It does, however, imply she was a home help until the time of her election in 2015. Something Rayner herself contradicted some time ago…
In February 2012 The Guardian interviewed Rayner as part of its ‘working life’ series into different careers. Clue: ‘home help’ was not the career in question…
In the piece (‘A working life: the union official’) Rayner is described bluntly as a “full-time Unison representative at Stockport council.” It describes her actual work:
“As Stockport branch secretary, Rayner spends her working day, not to mention huge chunks of her own time, negotiating with senior council officers and councillors on behalf of around 4,000 Unison members.“
To clarify things further the piece adds: “She was seconded from her job in social care to the position of assistant branch secretary for Unison where she is now in her second year – an elected role which has a one-year tenure.” The byline even says: “Starting as a home help, Angela Rayner was soon a Unison steward”…
“Substantive role” is language invented by the trade unions to refer to the job an official had prior to their taking on a union job. In Rayner’s case she worked full-time on union matters while seconded from her nominal home help position. This is otherwise known as “full-time release” and is described in Unison’s handbook. Not a home help then…
While her Who’s Who entry says she was solely a union official from 2005 Rayner has claimed to have worked as a home help for “almost a decade“, for 14 years, and for 15 years. Doesn’t stack up…
Reform MP Danny Kruger welcomed adult film star Bonnie Blue’s support for the party, adding:
“I’m not going to be judgemental about people who want to vote Reform. We want all the support we can get – quite like Bonnie Blue.”